1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains generally to pneumatic cotton harvesters, and particularly to an apparatus of that type used in combination with a rotary or oscillating spindle type cotton picker.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of modern mechanized harvesting equipment for harvesting cotton results in valuable quantities of cotton being scattered on the ground and intermixed with leaves, grass, weeds and dirt. Reportedly as much as 20% of a cotton crop is commonly lost in this manner following the passage of the mechanical harvesting equipment.
Various proposals have been made for recovering this fallen cotton, but all are found subject to serious disadvantages and shortcomings sought to be avoided by the present invention. Examples of prior art devices using at least in part pneumatic means for recovering the cotton are to be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,674,078, 3,308,581, 3,327,459, 3,332,220 and 3,416,296.
The recovery of the cotton is complicated by various factors including the fact that cotton is light and its fibers very easily become entangled with other portions of the cotton plant and with other plants. This is particularly serious as respect to leaves and other foreign material of a dry nature which remains attached to the cotton.
To be effective, therefore, it is important, therefore, that the recovery equipment be so designed as to be capable of recovering cotton with a minimum quantity of dirt, leaves, and other debris with which it may be initially engaged. Further, that portion of the debris and foreign matter entering the apparatus must then be separated and ejected from the apparatus without risk of losing the recovered cotton.
The equipment heretofore proposed for the purpose just referred to has been quite unsatisfactory and subject to serious shortcomings, including ineffectiveness in recovering cotton and incapability to clean and separate foreign matter to acceptable minimum standards. As a consequence, the recovered cotton carries highly objectionable quantities of foreign matter with it and this causes serious damage to ginning equipment through which all cotton is passed when first received from the grower.
Much of the prior art is centered at retrieving cotton which has already fallen on the ground. Most schemes of this type incorporate an unsatisfactorily large amount of foreign matter in the recovery process rendering the cotton unacceptable for further use. It is therefore an object of this invention to recover cotton which would normally fall on the ground as the mechanical harvesting equipment is passing through the field before the cotton has a chance to actually hit the ground. A further object of the invention is to provide means for separating out leaves, stalks, rocks, dirt clods, and other debris while retaining only substantially clean cotton.
Another object of the invention is to provide means by which the cotton which would otherwise have been lost will be retrieved and transferred to the picking and cleaning mechanisms included as usual standard features in a cotton harvester. During the transfer process, a second cleaning function is included to further eliminate dried leaves, stems, and other trash from the valuable cotton.
It is well recognized that while rotating or oscillating spindle-type harvesters are able to successfully pick a major portion of the cotton from the cotton plant, some of the cotton is loosened but not removed from the plant. As the plant then leaves the picker header of the harvesting machine, the previously unremoved cotton is dislodged and falls to the ground. It is therefore an object of this invention to position a means for gleaning this cotton immediately behind the cotton picker header and provide the gleaning means with means for agitating the stalks and branches of the cotton plants to complete the dislodging and removing of this cotton from the cotton plant. The dislodged cotton is captured before it has an opportunity to hit the ground, thus preventing the quality degradation of the cotton experienced by so many prior art devices of this type.